GRAZING CATTLE IN WESTERN VIRGINIA. 365 



them, in some measure, from the harsh, drying winds most propitious to the fly. 

 It has frequently occurred to me that ashes well saturated with whale-oil soap- 

 suds would be a good application, though I have never tried the experiment. 



Very respectfully yours, &c. W. N. DORSETT. 



We apprehend a sprinkling of the driest and finest dust of any kind, while the 

 plant is yet wet with dew, would be the best preservative against the fly. If 

 any fertilizer, such as trash tobacco, or poudrette, can be so thoroughly pulver- 

 ized as to be used for that purpose, doubtless it would be better. How would 

 charcoal dust answer 1 Guano is found to be too powerful when thus applied in 

 direct contact with the plant ; but Mr. Bowie's suggestion of a solution of it is 

 feasible and promising. The worst of it is with agriculturists in these cases, 

 they take it out in having a great mind to try this experiment and that. They 

 think too long, and are too slow to act. Why do n't Agricultural Societies stimu- 

 late to experiments out of the old beaten track ? 



GRAZING CATTLE IN WESTERN VIRGINIA. 



Those who have enjoyed, as we had the. pleasure to do last summer, an op- 

 portunity to contemplate this branch of Husbandry under peculiarly agreeable 

 circumstances, cannot fail to regard it as one of the most pleasant and entertain- 

 ing that can employ the capital and attention of the agriculturist. At the same 

 time, it was impossible to see, without deep regret, a noble region of country 

 like that of Western Virginia, with all its capabilities for the production of so 

 many staples restricted, in the enjoyment of its rich resources, to this single pro- 

 duct, resolving all its grass and its grain into living locomotives, as the only 

 shape in which any profit can be derived from their fertile valleys and grass-clad 

 mountains, their lime, timber, and water-power without limit. What a spec- 

 tacle of improvidence, in this age of progress, to see a country so incumbered 

 with timber as to cost the owner $10 an acre to get it cleared and burnt off, to 

 make way for the plow, instead of having the cattle killed, and salted on the 

 spot, the bark employed in tanning their hides, and the wood employed in burn- 

 ing the lime that cumbers the earth — instead of sending millions of pounds of 

 lard, and tallow, and butter, and cheese, and flour, and pork, and honey, and hops, 

 and wool, and iron, and salt, and a thousand things, to market by railroad, all 

 these rich resources are either locked up altogether, or made to contribute only 

 to the one interesting and beautiful but solitary pursuit of grazing. Oh ! were 

 it possible to enlist farmers as earnestly in the study and prosecution of their 

 own interests, as they are made subservient to the schemes and the fortunes of 

 politicians, and other more particular and closely banded classes of the commu- 

 nity, what a glorious destiny one might see in the perspective, for States like 

 Maryland and Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, with their inexhaustible 

 materials and conveniences for every great agricultural staple, for mineral pro- 

 ducts of every kind, and for all the great branches of Manufacture ! Blessed, in 

 fact, with every natural guaranty of independence, prosperity and power, that 

 God in all His goodness could confer on a favored people, and yet what a spec- 

 tacle do we see ! Confined to the cultivation of four or five staples, and depend- 

 ent for a living profit on these upon the fluctuating policy of foreign Governments 

 and the yet more uncertain prevalence of famine or abundance abroad, according 



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